


To Trust

by Spacecadet72



Category: Forever (TV), The Age of Adaline (2015)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-01-10
Packaged: 2018-05-12 21:48:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5682004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spacecadet72/pseuds/Spacecadet72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1949, Adaline Bowman befriends Abigail and Henry Morgan. In 1981, she meets them again and they learn that she and Henry share a similar fate. In 2027, she runs into Henry again, but this time, he discovers that she has changed in a way he cannot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Trust

**Author's Note:**

> Title pulled from this quote: 
> 
> Old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.  
> Athenaeus

**2027**

"Hello, Henry. It's been a long time,” she said, her voice as low, her words as measured as he remembered and as always, she managed to appear at once timeless and on trend. 

"Adaline," Henry greeted with a smile as he walked over to her table. He gestured to the seat across from her. "Are you waiting for someone?" 

She shook her head. "No, it's just me today." There was a note of sadness in her tone, but he didn’t push. At least, not yet. 

"You look the same as always, Henry," she said with a smile as she took a sip of her coffee 

"And you don't." 

It had taken him a moment, in his surprise at seeing her again to notice the lines that hadn't been there the last time he saw her 50 years ago. He can see a few grays here and there in her hair, and knows from experience that they are real. 

She nodded and looked down. He had thought, back when Adam had found his gun, and then when he had shot him with it, that he could end his curse with the weapon that began it. It hadn’t worked, but he had a theory that since the bullet killed him, that he would never be able to break it that way. Had she found an answer? He opened his mouth to ask exactly how she had started aging again, when she spoke. 

"I heard about Abigail. I am so sorry for your loss."

"Thank you,” he murmured. Even decades later, It was a comfort to receive condolences from someone who knew exactly who, and when, Abigail had been to him. 

He remembered when they first met before either of them knew the truth about each other. 

**1949**

_Henry opened the door to the apartment, and was met with soft laughter coming from the kitchen._

_He walked further into the apartment, dropping his bag by the door and shrugging out of his coat. His smile was wide as he walked into the kitchen and saw Abigail and Adaline having tea._

_“Hello, Henry.”_

_“Hello, Adaline,” he said, joining them at the table, his hand reaching over to grab Abigail’s. “Hello, darling.”_

_“Adaline was just telling me about her younger sister, Flemming’s first visit to the city,” Abigail said after returning his greeting and giving his hand a gentle squeeze._

_“Oh? How did she like it?” Henry asked._

_“It’s different than California, so it was an adjustment,” Adaline said, with a small upturn of her lips._

_Henry remembered traveling to California before Abigail and Abe. The cities there had their own personality and chaos, but they weren’t New York._

_“Mommy?”_

_They all turned to see Abe, his eyes still heavy with sleep, his hair all pushed up on one side standing at the edge of the kitchen._

_“Come here, love,” Abigail said, reaching her hands out to beckon him to her. “Did you have a good nap?”_

_Abe nodded, and then turned to Adaline, who was still new, even after they’d been in the apartment for a month, wanting to tell her about his time at the park earlier. She smiled widely as she spoke, all of her attention on him._

_Henry was glad to see how well Adaline got on with their little family. Especially Abigail, who had given up so much to live this life with him. Even if he knew they could never get too close, she needed a friend._

He remembered having to leave in the middle of the night when one of the downstairs neighbors saw too much. He and Abigail had packed while Abe slept, speaking only to let the other know what had been packed already. 

He remembered Abigail glance over at the apartment next to them with a wistful look. He too wished that he could say goodbye to the woman who had become a good friend to their whole family, but they both knew why they couldn't. 

Now, with what they both knew, maybe knocking on her door, letting her in on that secret part of their lives would have been what they needed.

He shook his head to bring himself out of the past, but knew she wouldn't judge him for getting lost in his memories. They were all you had after a while.

"There’s no one new in your life?" He said, bringing the conversation away from the past.

She shook her head. "There was, but it didn't work out."

"I'm sorry to hear that." 

She smiled, soft and sad and Henry knew that smile. "It was for the best."

"Relationships must be easier now that you're aging again." Henry said and he couldn't stop from seeing the image of an aging Abigail or the way Jo had looked when she'd found a gray hair while getting ready one morning. 

"Old habits can be difficult to break." 

He nodded. Letting those walls down wasn't easy, not when he could so easily remember the look of horror and disbelief on Nora’s face as he held the knife to his wrist, the look of shame and guilt as he had been dragged away from his home. The faces of the doctors as they experimented, the feel of drowning as he was strapped to their table. She had escaped that fate, but just a taste was enough to bring those walls up. 

“What about you?” she asked, bringing him out of his thoughts. 

“There is someone,” he said with a small smile as he thought about Jo. “She’s a police detective I used to work with.” 

Adaline smiled. “I’m glad to hear it.” 

Neither of them mentioned what they both knew: regardless of how happy they were now, it wouldn’t end well. Henry had struggled with that after Abigail, not wanting that heartbreak anymore, but now, with Jo, he thinks that she was right when she told him the journey was what mattered. He was on this journey forever, and might as well take the good with the bad that was inevitable. 

\---

Adaline studied Henry in the silences between stories as they caught up. He looked just the same, and yet so much older than he had almost 50 years ago. It was in his eyes, and the way his smile held just that much more weight to it. 

She knew what that weight felt like, had seen that kind of aging in mirror. She aged now, but those years would always be with her. 

The last time she had seen him, she had seen the inevitable heartbreak he so willfully ignored. No wonder he looked so tired now. That sort of heartbreak didn't go away just because there was someone new. It lessened and it felt less raw, but it never left. 

Especially when you knew you were heading down the same path a second time.

**1981**

_“Adaline?”_

_The older woman paused as they passed each other in the bread aisle, and Adaline knew she knew her from somewhere, but couldn’t place it. Even if she could remember, she could never let on that this woman was right._

_“No, I’m sorry, you must…”_

_“Who is it, darling?” A younger man walked up behind the woman, a grocery basket on one arm. It was like seeing a ghost, and Adaline wondered if this is how it felt when people she had known long ago saw her._

_“Henry?”_

_\-----_

_He had looked as shocked as she was sure she did. They had paid for their groceries quickly, each keeping an eye on the other as they checked out. They had gone back to the Morgan’s house for tea and to talk._

_“How do you make it work?” she asked, wondering if not getting out of that cab all those years ago had been a mistake, if she and William could have been happy enough with the time they had._

_But she had seen the looks they had garnered at the store. Henry had never been good at hiding how he felt and the age difference between him and Abigail was enough that anyone else who didn’t know the truth wouldn’t understand it; wouldn’t approve._

_She had also seen Abigail notice the looks as well. She had always been a strong and stubborn woman, not letting others stopping her from what she wanted, but Adaline had seen how the judgements on the faces of the other shoppers had cut her friend. And that Henry refused to see it._

_Would she have come to regret it if she’d gotten out of the cab that day, if she’d answered yes to the question he never got to ask? Would he?_

_“We don't let it stop us,” he said, and she thought she had her answer in the idealistic look in his eyes._

_“_ I'm glad you're happy, Henry,” she said in all sincerity as she got up to clear away her cup. 

“Are you?” he asked, his eyes not leaving hers and she knew he was asking as much for himself as for his concern for her well being.

She looked down for a moment, not wanting to give him a glib answer. She met his eyes again after a moment. 

“I think I'm getting there.”


End file.
